Letter: Lou Gros Louis, Lansdowne

Editor: When is our Board of Supervisors going to stop making speeches about Loudoun County being the fire service training center for our surrounding counties, the men and women of our fire service being among the lowest paid in Northern Virginia, and the need to modernize our antiquated pay scale structure and finally do something about it?

As our fire service continues to lose its professionally trained men and women to surrounding counties, it appears that our dinosaurian Board of Supervisors is spending its time making speeches, planning, plotting, discussing, and strategizing how to fast track their own soon to be obscene pay raise.

This old firefighter and former member of a Board of Supervisors in another jurisdiction continues to be amazed at the dedication, enthusiasm to seek excellence in their careers, and insight the men and women of Loudoun County’s fire and rescue service have. Despite the continuing lack of action by a Board of Supervisors that took immediate action to put our taxpayers in debt for generations to come when our taxpayers became a cash cow for the corrupt and mismanaged DC Metro system, and with the speed of light doled out over $1 million to local organizations, the men and women of our fire service are really inspiring.

Before our taxpayers have to start protecting their homes and property with their garden hoses, before we spend another dime of taxpayers money training fire service personnel for surrounding counties, and before we lose some of the most professional, caring, and dedicated firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs this old firefighter has ever had the privilege of knowing, it is time for our Loudoun County Board of Supervisors to stop crowing about their leaving higher paid jobs to serve the folks of Loudoun County and start paying attention to the real professionals among us who are being severely impacted by all of you dragging your feet on this issue and to stop using taxpayer funds used to have companies study the issue over and over again. Our elected Board of Supervisors should be a hive for action people, not a nest for drones.

This old guy is far from being a pessimist of the issue of board members appearing to be more interested in their own pay raise than resolving one of our county’s critical issues. I am strongly in favor of any elected board member to use common sense in decision making, honesty in speech making, and a recognition of urgency in resolving critical issues which I guess would make me forever ineligible for public office in today’s political environment.